Buses Carry 75% Of Cta Passengers

February 03, 1991

For many people, the CTA`s elevated system is a Chicago landmark. But it`s the bus system that is the transit authority`s workhorse.

Buses carry three-fourths of the CTA`s 2 million daily passengers. They operate on 132 routes that cover about 2,100 miles, and they pull over at almost 12,900 stops throughout the city and in more than 30 contiguous suburbs.

The fleet logs 74 million miles a year-232,000 miles on the average weekday, 157,000 on the typical Saturday and 126,000 on Sundays.

Some routes operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The longest run in the system is the No. 9 Ashland, which stretches for more than 16 miles, from Irving Park Road on the North Side to 103d Street on the South Side.

The CTA has 2,170 buses, of which about 1,810 are needed on weekdays to meet peak-hour demand.

When the Southwest Side rapid transit line opens in about two years, connecting Midway Airport with downtown, the need for about 80 vehicles in the heavily traveled Archer Avenue-Stevenson Expressway corridor will be eliminated.

New buses cost about $200,000 each and are designed to last 12 years, though the CTA sometimes keeps vehicles in service for much longer periods.

(Rail cars, by contrast, cost about $900,000 each and have useful lives of 25 to 30 years.)

CTA bus engines typically are overhauled every 110,000 to 120,000 miles, transmissions every 45,000 to 65,000.

In the old days, drivers had to shift gears and make change for passengers as they wended their way along Chicago`s streets. But automatic transmissions were introduced in the late 1940s, and the CTA began to require exact fares from passengers in the mid-1960s.

Disputes over how much was deposited in fareboxes occasionally broke out between drivers and passengers until about five years ago, when electronic fareboxes capable of counting were installed.